Can you talk to me about lizards?

[mom4him]

My 12 yr old dd wants a lizard. One of my adult sons says she needs to get a Leopard Gecko as they are slower/easier to care for.

 

What else to we need to know about them.

Do they poop all over the place. :001_huh:

How often does their habitat need cleaning. :tongue_smilie:

Do you have a good book to recommend?:confused:

Is there another lizard that you would recommend over the Leopard Gecko?:bigear:

 

She is good at helping taking care of the pets we have but have been told that lizards are very temperamental. This would be her pet and up to her to care for.

[jar7709]

We have a leopard gecko. We did a fair amount of research before buying it and everyone says it is a good beginner lizard pet. It is very easy to care for, honestly the hardest part is keeping the crickets you feed them from escaping all over the place, which is not *that* hard. It usually poops in one area of the tank/habitat and we have ours lined in paper towels, once a week or so we pick up the paper towel, put new ones down, and throw the old away. Easiest pet to clean up after, ever.

 

We have this book and it is just fine for our needs.

 

I've also been told baby bearded dragons are good for kids and beginners.

[mom4him]

We have a leopard gecko. We did a fair amount of research before buying it and everyone says it is a good beginner lizard pet. It is very easy to care for, honestly the hardest part is keeping the crickets you feed them from escaping all over the place, which is not *that* hard. It usually poops in one area of the tank/habitat and we have ours lined in paper towels, once a week or so we pick up the paper towel, put new ones down, and throw the old away. Easiest pet to clean up after, ever.

 

We have this book and it is just fine for our needs.

 

I've also been told baby bearded dragons are good for kids and beginners.

 

Thank You for your reply. I just looked and can get to book used for $4 so think we will start there.

 

Can you share what size tank/habitat you have? Do you keep the tank in well lit area or darker area?

[elise1mds]

We kept our anole in a 15-gallon aquarium tank that we converted to vivarium. It stayed in DS' room, which is not the most well-lit place. But we had the basking light during the day and the heat lamp on at night, so the amount of natural light didn't matter as much. It lived close to 2 years, so we must have done something right.

 

We're probably going to get him a beardie in the next couple years or so. He's been dying for one for ages. Honestly, he'd like a beardie AND a corn snake AND a leopard gecko AND... you get the idea. But we'll restart with one at a time.

[mommaduck]

I second the Leopard Gecko. We had one. They are VERY easy to care for. They do not "poop all over the place" (you don't even notice their poop). Ours had a preference for the live crickets and mealworms though, refusing to eat the dead ones. You keep them in a tank unless you want to bring them out and carry them on you for a bit. They like to crawl to the nape of the neck to hide though.

[jar7709]

Can you share what size tank/habitat you have? Do you keep the tank in well lit area or darker area?

 

We have an old 10-gallon fishtank with a screen lid on top of DD's bookshelf. Light levels don't matter that much, but temperature does. It is often cool in DD's room, so we have a 60w heat bulb that sits on top of the screen lid. You can buy starter lizard habitat setups at pet stores that have everything you need, but we already had the fishtank so the only equipment we bought was the screen lid, heat bulb and light fitting, and a water dish.

[Abigail4476]

We had our leopard gecko for over 3 years and then gave him to one of ds9's friends a few months ago. The gecko is still living as far as we know.

 

He was very, very easy to care for. We had him in a 10 gallon tank with a screen lid and a heating pad under the tank on one side. We used the green tank liners which are very easy to remove, rinse off with the hose or wash in the washer and then air dry. The gecko (Gizmo) tended to poop in one area, so in between washing the liners the kids would simply use paper towels to pick up poop and throw it away every day. Also, we had him on a cabinet that had fluorescent lighting mounted under the upper cabinets. I left those lights on for 10-12 hours a day and then turned out the light. However, before we added the under-tank heating pad, we used both daytime and nighttime heating lamps (one used a regular bulb and the other used a black-light bulb) which my husband rigged to timers.

 

Foodwise, we had a shallow container of fresh water, a little milk lid of calcium powder and 2-3 crickets/day. The gecko started out on live mealworms and then graduated to crickets. After he started eating the crickets, he wouldn't go back to worms. LOL!!! He would never eat dried bugs; we always had to provide live food.

 

I was careful not to use strong chemicals or soaps to clean the tank and bedding. Usually plain water and a paper towel is fine for wiping everything down. Occasionally we would remove the lizard and clean everything with hot, soapy water, but we rinsed very, very well and dried everything completely before putting him back in the tank.

[happypamama]

We've had a leopard gecko for six years. She is super low maintenance. It took a little bit of time to get to know her patterns at first, but she's really easy. We get her 30 large crickets every couple of weeks and dole them out a few at a time. We have also given her mealworms and waxworms at times, but they're trickier, as they don't keep as well as the crickets. (You do have to feed the crickets too.) She can easily go for several days without food, though, and she'll be just fine. (In the winter, particularly, she tends to hide, almost hibernate.) DH cleans her aquarium occasionally, but not all that often (hmm, I should remind him that it's probably time to do it again). The aquarium is lined with paper towels.

 

Ours has a large aquarium (there used to be two, but one died a few years ago) with a mesh screen lid that slides off for feeding. It has one or two heating pads, so that part of the space is warm, and there is also a light that is above it, to act as the sun, with a branch under it so she can climb out and bask. She does! She has a water dish (they don't drink a ton but need some), and a couple of things where she can hide; one is a rock with holes, and one is a homemade contraption (out of a clean plastic container) with something called Bed-a-beast, I think. I think she also has a coconut shell where she can hide. (Some of them are in warmer spaces in the aquarium, some in cooler.)

 

I'm being a little vague, I know, but DH handles all of the care for her, and he's tweaked things a bit over the years, so I'm a little fuzzy. I believe there are gauges to monitor the heat and humidity, too, so he's spent some time adjusting heating pads, lights, etc. to get them optimal. (Okay, I just asked him; he has the light set to come on for about 12 hours and then go off for 12, so it mimics a day-night cycle.) The gecko seems perfectly happy, and she's fairly social. She comes out when she hears DH open the top, and it's fun to watch her bask, chase food, even shed. We picked a leo because DD was really into lizards for a while, and the leos are low maintenance, but social. I detest snakes with an absolute passion, but I think the gecko is cute. She looks like she's smiling a lot. :) Also, they are not climbing geckos, so they're a little easier for kids to hold (which we've helped DD do occasionally). The setup is a little expensive at first, but probably not any worse than a lot of pets, and the upkeep is inexpensive.

 

We asked a lot of questions from an independent pet store and bought a couple of basic "how to care for your gecko books," which you can probably find a lot of places. We did buy our first leo from the independent pet store, but it died after about six weeks. So we ended up going to PetCo and buying two; one lasted a couple of years, and the other is six and doing very well.

 

ETA: DH says our aquarium is a 20-gallon, which is big, but with all the toys she has, it's about right (and it was okay for two). :) He also says it's not a coconut shell (that was for when she was younger), but it's a coconut fiber tube that she has for hiding. We just keep ours in a regular room, neither particularly dark nor particularly light; the "sun" lamp takes care of making sure it's warm enough for her.

 

IIRC, bearded dragons were the other good recommendation. I think we opted for the leo because it was a little less expensive, plus it's pretty cool to watch them grow from babies to adults, to see their patterns emerge.

Edited July 18, 2012 by happypamama

[mom4him]

Thanks, everyone.:001_smile:

 

My middle son thinks he may have access to a 30 gal tank for nothing for her. Not sure if I want something that big though if a 10-15 gal is big enough. We have very limited space. Would you go ahead and use the bigger tank if available or get a smaller one. Are they like some fish and grow according to the size of their habitat or do they simply get so big and that is it?

 

I have told her that she has to save up for most of the cost to prove that she can be responsible for the monthly cost of the food.

 

Oh, how often do you purchase the crickets? We don't always get to the town that has the pet stores every week even. Sometimes it is 2-4 wks. Will this be an issue? I am not interested in having to make a trip to purchase crickets.:tongue_smilie:

[happypamama]

Thanks, everyone.:001_smile:

 

My middle son thinks he may have access to a 30 gal tank for nothing for her. Not sure if I want something that big though if a 10-15 gal is big enough. We have very limited space. Would you go ahead and use the bigger tank if available or get a smaller one. Are they like some fish and grow according to the size of their habitat or do they simply get so big and that is it?

 

I have told her that she has to save up for most of the cost to prove that she can be responsible for the monthly cost of the food.

 

Oh, how often do you purchase the crickets? We don't always get to the town that has the pet stores every week even. Sometimes it is 2-4 wks. Will this be an issue? I am not interested in having to make a trip to purchase crickets.:tongue_smilie:

 

I think they only grow so big, but I'm not sure about that. I think 10-gallon might be pushing it for reasonable size, but 15 might be big enough. Really not sure though.

 

Food costs about $6 or $7 a month. If you buy food every 4 weeks, that might be pushing it a bit; I think it depends on whether the crickets will last that long or not. You might want to look into whether you could feed frozen food in a pinch (not sure). 2 weeks should be no problem, or at least it hasn't been for ours; she's fine for several days if she runs out of food. (However, she's also full-grown and has a sizeable fat store in her tail. I'd probably want to be more cautious with a baby, to make sure we didn't run out of food. We were in a completely different locale when ours was a baby, so I don't remember what our food-buying routine was back then.)

[jar7709]

Oh, how often do you purchase the crickets? We don't always get to the town that has the pet stores every week even. Sometimes it is 2-4 wks. Will this be an issue? I am not interested in having to make a trip to purchase crickets.:tongue_smilie:

 

I think 30 gal for one lizard, if purchased as a baby, would probably be a little too big. Our small-but-growing one seems to have plenty of space in a 10 gal, but I wouldn't go smaller. We buy crickets every 2 weeks or so. It might be hard to keep them alive a lot longer than that. Our leopard gecko will only eat live food, not frozen.

[mom4him]

I think they only grow so big, but I'm not sure about that. I think 10-gallon might be pushing it for reasonable size, but 15 might be big enough. Really not sure though.

 

Food costs about $6 or $7 a month. If you buy food every 4 weeks, that might be pushing it a bit; I think it depends on whether the crickets will last that long or not. You might want to look into whether you could feed frozen food in a pinch (not sure). 2 weeks should be no problem, or at least it hasn't been for ours; she's fine for several days if she runs out of food. (However, she's also full-grown and has a sizeable fat store in her tail. I'd probably want to be more cautious with a baby, to make sure we didn't run out of food. We were in a completely different locale when ours was a baby, so I don't remember what our food-buying routine was back then.)

Thanks for the info. Honestly it is a rarity for us to go much more than 2 wks as something always comes up. I live with high hopes that we can get by once a month but...... The 30 gal wouldn't be to big? You can't get it to big? cost in extra to heat? do the crickets run?:lol: Sorry, I digress.